(Fall 2022) Everything!
Well, almost – the exaggeration hopefully summoned your attention. ☺
Intimate friends have strong enough relationships to entrust each other with even their “secrets” that might be misunderstood or misused by those who may be simply acquaintances or “casual friends.”
Jesus declared this aspect of his friendship with his disciples, as recorded in John 15:15:
I have never called you “servants,” because a master doesn’t confide in his servants, and servants don’t always understand what the master is doing. But I call you my most intimate friends, for I reveal to you everything that I’ve heard from my Father. [John 15:15 (TPT)]
Indeed, Jesus held back only what the disciples were not yet ready to grasp but instead promised that the Holy Spirit will eventually unveil these things:
12There is so much more I would like to say to you, but it’s more than you can grasp at this moment. 13But when the truth-giving Spirit comes, he will unveil the reality of every truth within you. He won’t speak his own message, but only what he hears from the Father, and he will reveal prophetically to you what is to come. 14He will glorify me on the earth, for he will receive from me what is mine and reveal it to you. 15Everything that belongs to the Father belongs to me—that’s why I say that the Divine Encourager will receive what is mine and reveal it to you. [John 16:12-15 (TPT)]
There are even hints in the Old Testament of this desire on the part of God to entrust his friends with secrets. For example when Yahweh, along with two angels, appeared in human form to Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, He said to the two angels, “Should I really hide from Abraham what I intend to do?” [Genesis 18:17 (TPT)]. (Three times in Scripture we see that God called Abraham his friend [2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23].)
Another Old Testament example of God’s desire to share secrets with friends (his servants the prophets) is recorded by the prophet Amos regarding the intentions of God to take strong action in disciplining his people:
Surely the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing His secret plan [of the judgement to come] to His servants the prophets. [Amos 3:7 (AMP)]
From these Scriptural examples we see that Abba’s desire is to share his intimate secrets with his friends, which is but one of his expressions of deep love for us. Remembering that sharing is “two-way” among friends, let us seek to become vulnerable enough with Abba to share our own innermost thoughts with him. He knows them in any case, but our free expression of these thoughts is evidence of true (and safe!) friendship with our Best Friend!